The Sandal Question

I'm back from Beijing. A post on my trip to Beijing will follow shortly!

This will be a fairly short post. I don't know.... maybe China is getting a little to me at the 3-month mark. Maybe it was seeing my mom for a week that is making me miss Canada a little. Oh, to be in a country where people don't stare at you like you're a zoo animal and will actually form a line. And Canada would surely be close to the top of the list for polite countries. I find myself doing things here that I'd never do at home.... today, pissed at people getting onto an elevator before I had a chance to get off (as always), I practically rammed a young woman with my laptop case. Like many expats, I'm starting to wonder if China is turning me into a jerk - or at least a public jerk.

Anyone following my blog surely realizes that I'm loving it in China. Once you get to know them, the people are some of the warmest you'll ever meet. But there are just some things that I'm sure would remain appalling no matter how long I stayed here - namely every manner of disgusting public behaviour. I had high hopes for Beijing in terms of public behaviour, having heard about the pre-Olympics campaign to make people more polite/hygienic in public. But that wasn't the case at all. I was met with as much public spitting and line jumping as in the south.

The weather is quite warm now in Changzhou - about the same as a nice summer day at home. My mom brought sandals over to me, but I'm debating whether I should wear them at all given questionable hygiene standards. The campus is probably okay as (thankfully) rude behaviours seem to be much less common among students. Perhaps there is a correlation between youth and/or better education and more polite public behaviour. But I think I'll don shoes again for anywhere off campus. In addition to the spitting, we have children "watering" the flowers and sidewalks thanks to split pants. I seriously wonder if any of them end up with infections. Watching the little one sitting with split pants in the Muslim Noodle Shop, I think of the germs that must be all over that place.

Anyway - this a less than complimentary post about my time here. I realize that it wasn't all that long ago that most Chinese were poor - and many still are. Genteel behaviour is a luxury of the rich. Perhaps over time public behaviour will catch up with economic development. It also has much to do with being just one out of more than a billion. In our largely uninhabited land, can any Canadian ever truly comprehend that staggering figure?

I hope my readers forgive the temporary lapse in positivity. If nothing else, my ability to cope with life in China - me the part-germaphobe - shows that it is possible to adapt to anything. You don't have to like it, but you adapt.